Karla Tipton cut her literary teeth on gothic romances, Edgar Allan Poe and the vampire soap “Dark Shadows.” Long before there were sparkly vampires roaming through the cultural consciousness, she wrote about ordinary women time traveling through history and falling in love with powerful men of myth and magic.

“Genre-bending” came naturally. Despite publishing industry advice to find a genre and stick with it, Karla shamelessly mixed it up, blending history, paranormal, time travel, fantasy and mystery into her novels.

When she became fascinated with Richard III, she made a research trip to England, so she could lend authenticity and historical detail to her novel about a romance between a modern woman and her favorite medieval king. “Rings of Passage,” a time travel romance set in medieval England, is Karla’s first published novel.

Time travel and magic are also at the heart of the project she’s just wrapping up, “Dangerous Reflections,” a romance about a twenty-first century post-graduate student and an Edwardian-era wizard. Karla is a member of Romance Writers of America, and her writing has earned top honors in several RWA chapter competitions. When not at her government job or writing novels, Karla plays guitar in a classic rock band.